Journalist Jesse Singal in his article “Social Media Is Making Us Dumber. Here is Exhibit A." argues that people interested in discussing politics are victims of the brutal social media environment. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essayMr Singal holds a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University and has studied inequality in America, making him a credible source on the topic. In his article he claims that social media is actually harming politics and making it “more difficult for people who are even remotely in ideological agreement” to converse about basic news events. Furthermore, the media acts as gatekeepers; allowing people to see only what the press releases show in the article case of Steven Pinker. The media butchered his Harvard speech to portray him as an alt-right supporter, when in reality he was discussing how the "alt-right's beliefs are illogical." This real-world example underlines Singal's assertion that social media is only making us dumber, because we allow ourselves to fall victim to deeply misleading reporting and the idea that we must fiercely defend our opinion against others. Singal's work should lead us to question not only what we trust the media to report altruistically; but also question how we have allowed these online spaces to shape our political opinions. Politics is now influenced by every breaking news, whether true or not, social media spreads it like wildfire. As we can see from Singal's examples in the article, media clips can be deeply misleading and cause people to form political opinions on falsified information. In today's world it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish real news from fake news published in the online world. Social media apps allow people to consume what would otherwise just be news, such as jokes, memes, and satirical pieces that make it difficult to decipher between what is real and what is supposed to be comical. Furthermore, it can be argued from the article that social media is a major cause of the perpetuation of political polarization. Singal closes his article with a statement: “This is making us stupider.” Some worry that less informed Americans are relying on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook to get political news. Social media enables political homophily, which is the tendency for people with the same political opinions to stick together. Scientists have found that in popular media, users ignore news or information reported by someone with opposing political views. This perpetuates the divide in the American people and acts as an “echo chamber,” where people with the same political views reinforce ideas or beliefs and amplify them through repetition in these social media. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay To summarize, social media limits people's ability to argue cohesively and logically. Overall, journalist Jesse Singal highlights the effect social media is having on today's society and political atmosphere. The use of social media as political informants is making us “dumber” by limiting our political opinions and our ability to have open, logical discussions without hostile opinions being inserted. The media is also subject to.